It is hard to imagine better preparation for a career in
psychotherapy.
Born in St. Gallen, Switzerland, on October 4, 1903, Medard Boss grew
up
in Zurich during a time when Zurich was a center for psychological
activity.
He received his medical degree from the University there in 1928,
taking
time along the way to study in Paris and Vienna and to be analyzed by
Sigmund
Freud himself.

After four years at the Burgholzli hospital, as an assistant to
Eugen
Bleuler, he went on to study in Berlin and London, where his teachers
included
several people in Freud's inner circle as well as Karen Horney and Kurt
Goldstein. Beginning in 1938, he became associated with Carl
Jung,
who revealed to Boss the possibility of a psychoanalysis not bound up
in
Freudian interpretations.

Over time, Boss read the works of Ludwig Binswanger and Martin
Heidegger.
But it was his meeting, in 1946, and eventual friendship with Heidegger
that turned him forever to existential psychology. His impact on
existential therapy has been so great that he is often mentioned
together
with Ludwig Binswanger as its cofounder.

Theory

While Binswanger and Boss agree on the basics of existential
psychology,
Boss sticks somewhat closer to Heidegger's original ideas. Boss
doesn't
like, for example, Binswanger's ideas about "world-design:" He
feels
that the idea of people coming to the world with preformed expectations
distracts from the more basic existential point that the world is not
something
we interpret, but something that reveals itself to the "light" of
Dasein.

The analogy of light plays an important part in Boss's theory.
The word phenomenon, for example, literally means "to shine forth," "to
come out of the darkness." And so Boss views Dasein as a
lumination
which brings things "to light."

This idea has a profound effect on how Boss understands things like
psychopathology, defenses, therapeutic style, and the interpretation of
dreams. Defensiveness, for example, is a matter of not
illuminating
some aspect of life, and psychopathology is analogous to choosing to
live
in the darkness. Therapy, on the other hand, involves reversing
this
constriction of our basic openness, and we could call it
"enlightenment!"

One of his most important suggestions for the client is to "let
things
go" (Gelassenheit). Most of us try too hard to keep a
tight
rein on our lives, to keep control. But life is too much for
us.
We need to trust it a little, trust to "fate" a bit, jump into life
instead
of forever testing the waters. Instead of keeping the light of
Dasein
tightly focused, we should let it shine more freely.

Existentials

While Binswanger likes to use Heidegger's Umwelt, Mitwelt, and
Eigenwelt,
Boss prefers Heidegger's existentials, the things in life that
we
all have to deal with. He is interested, for example, in how
people
see space and time -- not the physical space and time of measured
distances
and clocks and calendars, but human space and time, personal space and
time. Someone from long ago, who now lives far away, may be
closer
to you than the person next to you right now.

He is also interested in how we relate to our bodies. My
openness
to the world will be expressed by my bodily openness and my extension
of
my body out into the world, what he calls my "bodying forth."

Our relationship with others is as important to Boss as it is to
Binswanger.
We are not individuals locked up inside our bodies; We live rather in a
shared world, and we illuminate each other. Human existence is
shared
existence.

A particularly "Bossian" concern is mood or attunement:
Boss suggested that, while we are always illuminating the world, we
sometimes
illuminate one thing more than another, or illuminate with different
hues.
It's no different from how we try to set a certain mood by lighting a
room
one way rather than another.

For example, if you are in an angry mood, you are "attuned" to angry
things, angry thoughts, angry actions; you "see red." If you are
in a cheerful mood, you are "attuned" to cheerful things, and the world
seems "sunny." If you are hungry, all you see is food; if you are
anxious, all you see are threats.

Dreams

Boss has studied dreams more than any other existentialist, and
considers
them important in therapy. But instead of interpreting them as
Freudians
or Jungians do, he allows them to reveal their own meanings.
Everything
is not hiding behind a symbol, hiding from the always-present
censor.
Instead, dreams show us how we are illuminating our lives: If we
feel trapped, our feet will be bound by cement; if we feel free, we
will
fly; if we feel guilty, we will dream about sin; if we feel anxious, we
will be chased by frightening things.

For example, Boss discusses a man who was having sexual difficulties
and feeling quite depressed. During the first months of his
therapy,
he dreamed only of machinery -- not unusual for an engineer, but not
terribly
exciting, either. As his therapy progressed, his dreams
changed.
He began to dream of plants. Then he dreamt of insects --
dangerous,
perhaps, and threatening, but at least alive. Then he dreamt of
frogs
and snakes, then of mice and rabbits. For some time, pigs were
featured.

Two years into therapy, and finally he began to dream of
women!
This man was sad and lonely because he had retreated to a world made up
only of machinery, and it took a long time before he could dream of
anything
quite so warm-blooded as a woman! The point to notice is that the
pigs don't represent anything -- not hidden wishes, or archetypes, or
inferiorities
-- in the therapist's pet theory. They belong to the engineer;
They
are what his evolving illumination brought to light at that time in his
life!

You can find Boss's theory spelled out in Existential
Foundations
of Medicine and Psychology. Psychoanalysis and
Daseinsanalysis
contrasts Freudian and existential therapy. His work on dream
analysis
can be found in The Analysis of Dreams and I
Dreamt Last Night....